Why Fully Self-Driving Cars Are Almost Impossible | The Limit

No current Waymo or Tesla full self-driving car is fully autonomous.

Waymo vehicles only operate in specific geofenced locations.

Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) mode requires human drivers to keep their eyes on the road and hands by the wheel.

When self-driving cars get stuck, they require human intervention to resolve the situation.

Waymo and Tesla employ very different approaches to achieving vehicle autonomy.

Waymo vehicles are equipped with lidar, radar, and 29 cameras.

Radar in Waymo vehicles uses radio waves to track object speed and distance, even through rain, fog, and dust.

Elon Musk has publicly stated that LiDAR is a "fool's errand" and is expensive and unnecessary for self-driving cars.

Dan Odow is a critical systems engineer who designed software for F-35 fighter jets and nuclear bombers.

Dan Odow has spent millions of his own dollars to demonstrate major design flaws in Tesla's Full Self-Driving software.

The Dawn Project's tests of the latest Why Fully Self-Driving (FSD) version showed vehicles still passing school buses and ignoring school speed limit zones.

GM-operated Cruise suspended its operations in San Francisco in 2023 after one of its self-driving cars dragged a woman underneath it, causing serious injury.

Waymo reported that 96% of its vehicles' stoppages during the December 2025 blackout resolved autonomously, but the remaining vehicles blocked intersections and hindered first responders.

Waymo employs drivers who are paid to sit in the driver's seat, either driving manually to collect training data or in autonomous mode to triage issues and send data to developers.

The price the price that came up on the Waymo is $135.

Just regular Uber X is $23.